You Can’t Always Get What You Want
By Jilian Nolan, A&E Editor

I'm a Former Bag Girl

One would look at my town and think upper middle-class, and that person would be right. But, as in every town, there are always the people who really can't afford to live in that town. The people who live in the apartments or the duplexes, and can just get by.

No one would exactly say I was the textbook definition of poor. I had what I needed, but in a town of entirely too priveledged kids, I was certainly a black sheep. I didn't have all the Abercrombie & Fitch clothes I desired and I knew from a young age that my 16 birthday wouldn't come equipped with a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

I was the Wal-Mart kid. Indeed I did, quite reluctantly, wear the Tweety and Taz shirts sold at Kmart. When I was younger it didn't bother me that my Keds were really no name shoes that cost a few bucks at Ames, but the older I got, the more I noticed that I was different.

In middle school, shopping with my friends I finally realized what made me so different. I couldn't afford to shop at Gap or American Eagle. It just wasn't in our budget. I became angry. I deserved those clothes too, didn't I?

When I was 12, I had my first babysitting job and I made $13. A couple days later, I went to the mall with a friend and I bought something at the Gap. It was a hideously ugly shirt that was on sale. But it didn't matter to me what it looked like. It had a Gap tag, and even better, it came with a Gap bag.

The blue and white plastic bag became my secret love. I used it all the time. If we were swimming in gym, my clothes were coming in a Gap bag. If I had to bring soda to school for a party, it was coming in that Gap bag. No one would ever know it was the same one.

As time went on, the bags shiny blue exterior started to fade and scratch, it had become apparent that it was no longer a new bag. So I moved on and saved until I could get something new. Something new that would come in a new bag.

I found such salvation in bags. Any name brand product that came with a beautiful bag was my life. I saved any money I got from babysitting and spent it at the mall. I finally felt like I was part of the right crowd.

In tenth grade my mother splurged and bought me a pair of Abercrombie and Fitch pants. I think I may have guilted her into buying them (something I regret to this day). She reluctantly handed over her credit card to the teenager behind the counter and kept saying she couldn't believe how much the pants cost.

I thought the pants would be the final step of my transition to a "cool kid." I would finally be friends with the kids I admired so much. Of course, I hated them. They were catty and mean, but they were popular. They had all the money and possessions they wanted.

I loved the idea of being one of them. I sat around thinking what it would be like to be the head of the school. I couldn't see how little it mattered. High school wasn't real life.

After years of attempting to be a cool kid (the bags didn't really get me anywhere) I have come to realize that being "cool" is all about being myself. Trying to fit myself into a mold didn't make me cool; it made me uniform. I still like wearing nice things, but I like it for me, not for them.